Education has accomplished more toward the regeneration of these lands than anything else. While it has been very broad, especially in the higher institutions, it has likewise been thoroughly permeated with Christianity. Though Robert College is not directly connected with any missionary society it “has exerted an incalculable influence for Christian life all over the empire. Among its graduates are many of the most prominent men in Bulgaria, and it is perhaps not too much to say that the nation really owes its existence to the influence exerted by President George Washburn and his associates. Its students have included representatives of twenty nationalities, and its Young Men’s Christian Association is unique among the college associations of the world in that it is divided into four departments according to the prevailing language spoken,—English, Greek, Armenian and Bulgarian.” The Syrian Protestant College at Beirut is likewise independent, though in closest sympathy and cooperation with the Presbyterian Board, North. Concerning the college, Mr. John R. Mott writes: “This is one of the three most important institutions in all Asia. In fact there is no college which has within one generation accomplished a greater work and which to-day has a larger opportunity. It has practically created the medical profession of the Levant. It has been the most influential factor of the East. It has been and is the center for genuine Christian and scientific literature in all that region. Fully one-fourth of the graduates of the collegiate department have entered Christian work either as preachers or as teachers in Christian schools.” In less degree the same results noted in the case of these two institutions are furnished by the records of the American Board’s colleges at Aintab, Harpoot, Samakov, Marsovan, and of its colleges for girls at Marash and Constantinople, as well as of the less ambitious Bishop Gobat School of the Church Missionary Society and the Beirut Female Seminary of the Presbyterians.
—Prof. Harlan P. Beach, F. R. G. S. etc.,
in “Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions.”
[Pg 181]
It has already been stated that in 1820 throughout the Turkish empire there was practically no modern education. The few schools which did exist were almost entirely ecclesiastical, maintained for the purpose of teaching a few men to conduct religious services. This was largely true of all schools, whether Armenian, Greek, or Turkish. Nowhere in the country were there schools for girls, the idea prevailing generally that girls could not learn to read, even if they were worth educating. The great mass of the people were unable either to read or to write. Ignorance even in the capital was dense, but it was much greater in the interior cities and towns. Often a large group of villages possessed not one person who could write or read a letter.
Argument is not required to show that no real reform could be introduced into the country without inaugurating some system of education. There must be produced readers and a literature if the intellectual and moral life of the people was to be raised. If the old Gregorian Church was to become enlightened in its belief and practise, there must be educated leaders as well as an intelligent laity. For this reason the missionaries began with an effort to awaken the intellects of the people. The Lancasterian schools that were so popular for a period in the capital had their value and exerted a good influence. The school of Pashtimaljian sprang from the aroused desire of the people for education and the conviction of the leaders of the Church that only educated leaders could be wisely trusted and followed. [Pg 182] There were other schools supported and directed by the Armenians themselves, but springing largely from the persistent effort of the missionaries. Until 1839 it was hoped that all the work of modern education among the Armenians would be carried on by the Armenians themselves, so that the missionaries need not open schools of any kind.
As the zealous ecclesiastics became more and more suspicious, restrictive measures were applied. It was observed that those who studied in the schools were among the leaders seeking to reform the errors which were destroying the spiritual influence of the Church. It soon became evident to the missionaries that they must take a direct part in the work of education. In 1840 Bebek Seminary for training the young men was opened. The head of this school was Cyrus Hamlin, who the year before had arrived at Constantinople, designated to this work. He was a man of rare qualifications for the task assigned him, knowing no fear, never disheartened in the face of insuperable obstacles, of tireless industry, practical wisdom and unbounded resourcefulness and devotion to the cause to which he had given his life.
The seminary at Bebek was begun just as the persecution of the evangelicals at the capital was becoming acute. Early in his career Dr. Hamlin was impressed with the fact that the school must succeed in the face of direct opposition from Russia. During his first year in the mission, while he was learning the Armenian language, his teacher was suddenly seized at the order of the Russian ambassador and deported to Siberia. Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Schauffler repaired to the Russian embassy and protested against the high-handed proceeding. The ambassador haughtily replied, “My master, the emperor of Russia, will never allow [Pg 183] Protestantism to set its foot in Turkey.” Dr. Schauffler, bowing low to the ambassador, gave the reply which has become historic, “Your excellency, the kingdom of Christ, who is my Master, will never ask the emperor of all the Russias where it may set its foot.” From that day to this, the covert as well as open opposition of Russia to missionary work in Turkey and, most especially, to all educational work, has been unremittingly experienced. Consistently has Russia adhered to the policy thus outlined and the opposition from that source to-day is as bitter as at any other period.
Dr. Hamlin threw himself into the work of the seminary with all his intense and resourceful energy. Thwarted at a hundred points, he immediately changed his plans and appeared even to his persecutors to have gained the victory. For twenty years the work proceeded with emphasis upon industries when industrial persecutions were crushing the people, but always strenuous, and always supremely Christian and evangelical. He saw that a vernacular training was not sufficient for the full equipment of the young men under his care to prepare them for positions of largest leadership. The Jesuit schools taught their pupils French so that all their graduates knew a European language. As yet the Armenian literature was very circumscribed and most inadequate to meet the intellectual and spiritual requirements of intelligent directors of a great national reform movement.
This was the opinion of Dr. Hamlin, shared, as he felt, by the great mass of the Armenian people. But he was not fully sustained in it by his colleagues in the mission. The American Board, under the leadership of its secretary, Dr. Anderson, had declared as its policy that mission schools should not teach English or any other language than the [Pg 184] vernacular to their pupils. To Dr. Hamlin this seemed such a backward step that he resigned from the Board and began to work and plan for higher education among young men. The story of the building of the now famous Robert College under an imperial irade from the sultan, and upon the most commanding site along the entire length of the Bosporus, is now so well known that it need not be repeated.
The college became a reality and the scheme of education conceived by Dr. Hamlin and carried out in Robert College represented, within forty years of the time of his resignation from the Board, the fundamental policy of all the higher educational work in the empire carried on in both missionary and independent institutions. For nearly a generation, however, in mission schools little was done in European languages, and most of the education given was imparted through the spoken language of the people.
As early as 1836, four years before the seminary at Bebek was begun, a high school was opened in Beirut in which both Arabic and English were taught. This school was apparently a great success, but four years later the pupils, because of their practical knowledge of English, became so useful to the English officers, then quartered in Beirut on account of political troubles, that the school was broken up. No doubt this unfortunate experience had much influence in leading the Board to endeavor to exclude English from mission schools. In 1848, a seminary upon the purely vernacular basis was opened in Beirut with a view to training its students for useful service among their own people. This school was continued until the change in policy by the Board and the mission, when the English language again took its place in the curriculum.
ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE
SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE, BEIRUT, SYRIA
[Pg 185] Whatever differences of opinion existed as to the place of English in the educational system of Turkey, there was practical unanimity in the belief that reform in the empire demanded the creation and maintenance of a system of schools which should include all grades, beginning with the primary. It was necessary to begin with the most rudimentary teaching before higher institutions could be sustained. The seminaries already referred to were not by any means colleges. They taught many studies of the lowest grades. As most of the pupils were mature in years, they made speedy progress and often astonished their teachers by their rapid advancement and clear grasp of abstruse subjects.
At every station where missionaries settled, schools sprang up and were at once widely patronized. In the large centers like Erzerum, Harpoot, Aintab and Marsovan, where the people were unusually intelligent and eager for an education, there was marked development and a rapid rise in the grade of the central schools. Colleges were not then developed, for there were no natives qualified to teach the studies of college grade, while there were no preparatory schools fitted to train students for college work. At that time the country itself was not in a condition to demand a college education. In the meantime Robert College was taking the lead in the higher education of men, although its work was then far inferior to the courses it now offers. Educators throughout the empire were closely watching the new institution upon the Bosporus, which became the pioneer and leader for the entire country.
When Dr. Hamlin was in the midst of his efforts to organize and construct a college for Turkey, the Rev. Crosby H. Wheeler, also from [Pg 186] the state of Maine, was sent into Eastern Turkey as a missionary, and with designation to Harpoot. Dr. Wheeler, with energy similar to that of his fellow laborer, stopped upon his way at Constantinople and became acquainted with the educational work there developing. He took direct issue with Dr. Hamlin upon the subject of the value of English, but agreed with him upon the place of education in the work of reform. Some years later, when the educational work at Harpoot was well established, Dr. Wheeler felt so keenly upon this subject that he gave public notice in the seminary, of which he was the principal, that any student who was known to be studying English, even by himself or by the aid of one or two resident Armenians who had studied at Constantinople under Dr. Hamlin, would be summarily expelled from the school.
Dr. Wheeler, with his keen vision and unconquerable energy, while an evangelistic missionary of unusual power, became the pioneer of education at Harpoot. Under his leadership, strongly seconded by Rev. Dr. H. N. Barnum, the seminary for young men at that place rapidly developed until in 1878 it was merged into Armenia College, afterwards changed to Euphrates College. It did not require many years for Dr. Wheeler to see that no broad education could be given in Turkey without the use of the English language, so that he became one of the most energetic and enthusiastic supporters of an English education for all students in the higher institutions of learning in the country. The other high schools in the eastern part of Turkey became preparator............